Wojtek the Bear — The “Happy Warrior” Who Battled the Nazis
Animals have been used in warfare ever since the first peoples learned how to domesticate them. Tales abound of knights riding armoured horses, war elephants smashing through lines of infantry, and Roman fire pigs causing precisely the sort of chaos you’d expect them to. However, industrialisation — and the advent of total war — has relegated most military animals to non-combat roles, being replaced by machines such as the tank. Dogs remain the chief exception, being used to this day for a variety of battlefield missions from guard duty to bomb disposal.
You would be forgiven for sprouting a confused look when informed that, during the Second World War, the Polish army enlisted a Syrian brown bear named Wojtek — shorthand for Wojciech, or ‘Happy Warrior’. You’d also be forgiven for wondering how awesome it would be to picture a fully decked-out battle bear whaling on squads of Wehrmacht stormtroopers (one that many Command & Conquer: Red Alert players will no doubt be familiar with).
While that’s not exactly what Wojtek the Bear did during the war (insofar as anyone can actually verify), that doesn’t make his contributions to the war effort any less important.
When Wojtek was born in 1942, Poland wasn’t in the best shape. After all, it had been invaded three years earlier by Nazi Germany in the event that kicked off the whole war. What is often overlooked, however, is the Soviet invasion that coincided with it — at the start of the war, Hitler and Stalin all but carved up the Polish state for themselves, intent on annexing whatever they could in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. On the Soviet side, thousands of Polish citizens and soldiers were deported to the Union, where they would remain in prisoner-of-war camps.
That was the case until 1941, when Germany unexpectedly backstabbed the Soviet Union and invaded, implementing Operation Barbarossa. As a result, British negotiators were able to persuade the Soviets to permit their Polish prisoners to leave the USSR. Thousands of refugees began to make their way towards Iran. Accompanying them was what was left of the independent Polish army: II Corps, or ‘Anders’ Army’, so-dubbed for its commander, Lieutenant General Władysław Anders.
Anders’ Army arrived at the city of Hamadan in April 1942, where they noticed a young Iranian boy at the train station with a bear cub. One of the refugees, Irena Bokiewicz — great-niece of one of Anders’ generals — was interested in this strange sight and enquired further about the cub. Upon learning that the cub’s mother had been shot by hunters a few days ago, Irena at once persuaded one of the soldiers, Lieutenant Anatol Tarnowiecki, to buy the bear from the boy and let her take care of him for three months. In August, the cub, who the soldiers called Wojtek, was donated to the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, where he would serve throughout the rest of the war.
Wojtek quickly became a close companion to the soldiers. On cold nights, he would sleep alongside them to give them comfort. In the daytime, he would play-wrestle with the troops and copy what they did. In the end, the soldiers would teach him how to salute, how to march with them, how to smoke cigarettes (or, rather, eat them) and how to drink beer — which ended up becoming his favourite beverage. Such was his popularity with the soldiers and refugees that he became an unofficial mascot for the Polish troops.
Anders’ Army eventually arrived in Egypt in July 1943, where they were attached to the British Eighth Army in preparation for the invasion of Italy. However, the Polish soldiers were faced with a problem: British regulations forbade the transportation of pets. They were told that Wojtek wouldn’t be able to come with them. However, some clever thinking led the troops to devise an unorthodox solution to that problem. Wojtek was promptly and swiftly enlisted as a private in II Corps. As he was now a soldier, now there would have to be provisions for his transport and care. Consequently, he was assigned his own caretakers — the soldiers Henryk Zacharewicz and Dymitr Szawlugo.
The Italian Campaign would be where Wojtek would garner international fame. Specifically, he participated in the ferocious Battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944. In the final assault, the 22nd Company to which Wojtek was attached would provide a steady flow of ammunition for Allied 25-pounder field guns to blast away at the ruined abbey where German troops had established a fortified stronghold. Noticing his comrades moving boxes and shells, Wojtek copied them and began shifting boxes himself.
Allegedly, the 91-kilo bear was carrying at least four times the ammo an ordinary soldier could to the guns — or so his comrades would boast once the press corps got wind of it. To this day the full extent of Wojtek’s contributions remains apocryphal. Zacharewicz stated that Wojtek was moving at least as many empty shells as he was live ones, simply believing the battle to be a form of play.
Whatever the case, there are two realities that cannot be denied. First is that, when the Polish flag was raised alongside the British one from the captured abbey on the 18th of May, it was one of the greatest victories of the war for Poland. The entire Senger Line that Germany had established to defend Rome was smashed open, creating a focus for the Allies to pour through and take the Italian capital.
The propaganda value of the victory at Monte Cassino alone was huge, bolstered as it was by the second reality: Wojtek had become a symbol of Polish resistance and stoicism. After facing a bleak occupation by Germany — which, with the Final Solution being put into effect, was about to get a lot nastier — the Poles forced to flee their homeland now had a symbol to gather around and fight for. Thus was Wojtek promoted to the rank of Corporal, and the emblem of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company would become a bear carrying an artillery shell.
By the end of the Second World War, the 22nd Company was stationed at Winfield Airfield in Berwickshire, Scotland, where Wojtek enjoyed his celebrity status as an honorary member of the Polish-Scottish Association. But with the II Corps formally demobilised on the 15th of November 1947, there was a new dilemma. What was to be done with Wojtek?
The first solution one would come up with would be to bring him back to Poland as a national hero. There was, however, one small but significant problem with that: Poland had fallen under the thrall of Soviet expansionism. The soldiers who had fought with Wojtek feared that the newly-established communist government there would make him into a Soviet propaganda piece, sponsoring the Stalinist ideology which had forced many of II Corps’ soldiers and families out of their homeland to begin with.
For this reason, it was decided that Wojtek would spend his sunset years at Edinburgh Zoo. There, the soldier-bear would continue many of the habits he picked up during his military career, such as smoking/eating cigarettes passed to him by zoo visitors — often former soldiers, some of whom had fought with him. In addition to making several guest appearances on British children’s show Blue Peter, Wojtek became a beloved figure throughout Edinburgh.
After 16 happy years at the zoo, Wojtek died peacefully on the 2nd of December 1963, aged 21. As well as memorials to the soldier-bear in the Imperial War Museum, a statue of him walking alongside a Polish soldier was raised in Edinburgh’s West Princes Street Park in 2013, and another monument was erected in Krakow’s Jordan Park in 2015.
Thank you all for reading, and I shall see you next time.
~ Harry
BIBLIOGRAPHY/WEBLIOGRAPHY:
- Orr, Aileen (1 November 2010); Wojtek the Bear — Polish War Hero. Birlinn Publishers. p. 45. ISBN 978–1–84158–845–2.
- BBC Outlook (2020); The soldier bear who went to war. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06vvk2r)
- Der Spiegel (13 July 2012); Wojtek the Bear: The Nazis’ Furriest Enemy. (https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/wojtek-the-bear-that-joined-the-polish-army-and-fought-the-nazis-a-844056.html)